For a student of leadership like me, it was a summer chock full of case studies from all of Canada’s neighbours. I realize I’m a little late to the game, but I want to weigh in with the back row leader’s perspective in a three-part series.

Full disclosure: I’m a dual citizen, and a former Republican who is planning to vote absentee in the U.S. election, not because I like the choices I’ve been dealt but because I don’t want to abdicate on my responsibilities as a naturalized American. I’m also a child of Europe, in possession of an uncompleted Irish passport application and with similar eligibility in Britain. I really don’t see a need for four passports, but I can’t hide the fact that I do feel loyalty to all four. That said, I’m an observer of much of what I’m commenting on, so I recognize I may have missed some nuances. Anyway, let’s jump in.

1. Populism is a form of leadership.
We’ve seen populist revolutions in the U.K. with Brexit, the U.S. with Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, and in Colombia last week with the people’s rejection of a peace deal referendum. Populist movements have multiple influencers and an inertia of their own. It’s hard to pinpoint the leader of a movement, which has its weaknesses but also offers some protection from political pressures. In The Starfish and the Spider, Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom use the metaphor of a starfish to discuss movements, pointing out that scientists still don’t know how starfish move in concert when they’re essentially an organism by committee. Without a head, the starfish is less vulnerable to damage and still manages to move and feed itself, but I suspect it sometimes surprises itself with where it ends up.

But isn’t Trump the leader of his movement? Attempting to read the trends and making adjustments to stay in front of the mob makes a good surfer but a poor leader. Trump has had a remarkable ability to see a wave building and to harness it without being knocked off his board; consider the strange bedfellows who resonate with “Make America Great Again,” and his flirtations with David Duke’s endorsement.

2. The most challenging part of leadership is to figure out how to get “there.”
It’s easy to be a critic, and even to lead a group away from “here.” But the wilderness beyond is full of regrets, uncertainty, and leadership pitfalls – where followers turn on a leader when their expectations aren’t met. Just ask Moses. Or Nigel Farage, who decided he “did his bit” in leading Britain out of Europe and wasn’t ready to take the mantle any further. As Bill Hybels is fond of stating, leaders move people from “here” to “there.” Leaving isn’t enough; it’s only the beginning of the need for good leadership.

It takes real courage to take on the wilderness ahead of Britain. You could argue that Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson had a lot of wisdom in backing away, but they lacked the courage — or perhaps the specifics — to back up their vision. Theresa May remained in the game even though she hadn’t supported the Brexit decision. It’s now up to her to help define the vision for what “there” is going to look like.

3. There’s a hunger for thought leadership.
Back on this side of the pond, there’s a failure of imagination. Dialogue is non-existing and creativity fails to get a hearing when well-defined camps hold long-established lines. Civility is lost, and the President skirts legislative approval while Republicans even resort to suing the President to prevent action. Too many Americans have believed the lie that the other candidate or party is wrong on 100% of the issues. And so there is no nuanced thought or open-minded discussion about tackling healthcare, immigration, gun violence, racism and terrorism.

When someone decides ahead of time that one party has the right position, it undermines their ability to think honestly. Even worse, it neutralizes their voice to speak into the issues.

4. The Church has lost its voice.
The issues America is facing have spiritual roots and spiritual implications. Only the Church can speak to heart issues like hatred; the State’s hands are tied. So the Christian must be able to work between the parties to challenge the extreme edges of gun freedom, to address roots of poverty, to seek equality and remove profiling in the application of law, while also seeking religious freedom for believers to operate in their sphere to address heart issues. No political party has a corner on solutions for these issues.

When the Church marries itself to a political party, as the black Church has largely done with the Democratic Party and the evangelical Church with the Republican party, they are taken for granted and their voice is silenced. When Donald Trump thinks he has evangelicalism firmly in his camp by offering them greater influence, power and friendly Supreme Court justices. Many no longer criticize his character or other policies, because they’ve heard what they need to hear.

5. Any void will be filled.
This is not an election as much as a referendum on the direction of the country. If the Republican party can’t fight off its hijacking, a void will certainly beckon for a new party to represent the conservative, immigrant-loving spectrum in a merger with the disenfranchised #nevertrump social and economic conservatives. If ever the United States could tolerate three parties, this seems the time.

However, I submit that the leadership void will not be filled by a politician. The Christian community must rise up to defy hatred, challenge racism, love the unloveable and defend the vulnerable. Spiritual leadership is needed, and it must come from voices that are not power-hungry and bowing the knee to any political party. To some, such meekness and humility will look like weakness. Some might call them losers. But the last will be first, and the first last. The meek will inherit the earth. The one who loses the world will gain his soul. That, more than anything else, is what America needs to find again.

On July 7, when Micah Xavier Johnson ambushed police officers in Dallas in the middle of a public firestorm focused on police brutality toward black men, it was not a politician who stepped up to lead with fresh vision. The world noticed when Dallas’s black police chief found a platform to address the craziness. David Brown had just the right combination of empathy with black minorities, identity with the uniform and Christian compassion, and his leadership drew praise from all parties.

Let’s start our study of wartime leadership by examining our defenses. In 2 Corinthians 2:10-11, Paul gives instructions to the Corinthian church for dealing with a specific case, then adds these critical words: “…so that Satan will not outsmart us. For we are familiar with his evil schemes.”

Are we familiar? What do we know about Satan’s attacking style? The Bible offers us a few helpful metaphors.

What do we know from the Scriptures about Satan’s specific tactics? His primary tools are:

Division: He sows discord and goes after the unity of fellow believers (Rom 16:17). The Corinthian church is a great example (1 Cor 1:10, 3:3, 11:18)

Distraction: He attempts to entangle us in “civilian pursuits” (2 Tim 2:4) and get us busy doing good things, rather than remain alert and sober-minded (1 Pet 5:8).

Lies: Satan is identified as the “father of lies.” Lies are his mother tongue (John 8:44). He twists truth and speaks half truths to deceive those who don’t know the truth well (Gen 3:1-4, Rom 16:18).

Deception: Jesus referred to false prophets as “wolves in sheep’s clothing” (Matt 7:15). Even Peter became a false prophet and attempted to subvert the plans of God. Jesus quickly exposed Satan hiding in his words (Matt 16:23). The tricky part is that Peter thought he was carrying truth.

Betrayal: I think of this as weaponizing people. Those who are close to us know our weak points. When Satan can turn one of us against the organization or the community, he or she knows how to hit where it hurts. For instance: Judas with a kiss, knowing Jesus’ hangout (John 18:2); Peter’s denial (Luke 22:61); Demas’ desertion because he loved this world (2 Tim 4:10).

Accusation: Satan is identified as the “accuser of the brethren” (Rev 12:10).

Picking off the unprotected: While lions may have the power for a frontal attack, they seldom come straight on. They hunt for the weak, the young, the old or the outliers rather than a full-out attack on the strong or the main group itself. Therefore Peter is saying that Satan pokes around the edges of the Church, looking for weak points. He targets the proud, who don’t believe they could fall (1 Cor 10:12). He pursues the exhausted and burned out. He picks off the isolated, including those who are traveling and alone.

I could go on and list doubt, discouragement, fear, the desires of our eyes and the pride of life (1 John 2:16). Instead of trying for comprehensiveness, let’s bring it right down to ground level and make it applicable. Take a step back and review the last couple of years.1. How does Satan usually attack you? What is your weak point?2. Where have you seen Satan’s tactics at work within your organization? 3. Where have you seen them in your church? 4. Where have we seen them in the broader Canadian and U.S. Church?

Now, consider the future.5. What can we expect that we haven’t seen yet?
If there’s a specific form of attack you haven’t seen as much as you might expect, it’s likely an indication of what might be just around the corner. How can you prepare for it?

We know more than we think about how Satan operates. We need to be vigilant for ourselves and our brothers and sisters so that we don’t fall and so we don’t unwittingly help the opposition by causing another to fall. Denial only plays into our enemy’s hands.

A different kind of leadership is going to be needed in North America in the next decade.

The Church in Canada is moving into a different phase, with less overt impact on the government and society. If it recognizes and embraces this minority status, it can have even greater impact on the culture as a minority voice. This will require a different kind of leadership than we’ve needed in past decades where leaders struggled to engage a Church that enjoyed its comfort and fell into complacency. Now the culture, societal pressures and even government regulations are forcing the Church to be fully engaged, standing for religious freedom and expression, “exclusionary” truths and marginalized people. The gospel needs to be lived out clearly by the institutional Church and the people of God. Leadership will be critical in guiding the Church through this change of approach.

In the Bible translation world, leadership is going to get increasingly difficult. We’ve weathered storms over the years that threatened to destroy us, and some of those storms have intensified in the last couple of years. If I’m correct, the clouds will continue to build. Why? Because of Vision 2025. We don’t often look at it this way, but how would Satan view a vision to empower a sustainable worldwide Bible translation movement, with the specific goal of starting translation in the remaining languages that need it by 2025? What else is that vision but an all-out offensive on the kingdom of darkness? Before 1999, we poked and prodded, slowly advancing the kingdom. This vision plans to expose every dark corner of this planet to the light of God’s Word within this decade. Many of the places we will be going in the next ten years are longtime strongholds. These changes call for bold, courageous leadership.

In short, our tactics and our leadership must be fashioned for wartime, not peacetime. The problem is that we’ve always been at war, as much of the rest of Church outside the West could have told us. The greatest victory our enemy has accomplished is in convincing such a large part of the Western Church that we were at peace. The enemy has taken vast tracts of territory while we slept.

Fortunately, there’s some good news. The Bible has plenty to say about how to live and lead in wartime. In fact, little of the Bible concerns itself with how the Church should operate in peacetime. Peace is something spoken of as hope for the future, not something we’ll attain on this earth.

Second, this context is very familiar to the Church around the world. That means we can learn leadership skills from our brothers and sisters outside the West.

Over the next few posts, we’ll examine the leadership implications of what the Bible says about wartime leadership.

When I was in Peru last year, a friend of mine told me the general nature of leadership in the Latin church. The goal, he said, was not a handoff. Sure, Latins want to be given responsibility and leadership in the missions movement, and deservedly so. In fact, the Church needs them to take leadership. But the nuance he introduced me to was that Latins don’t want the ex-patriates to leave. They want to serve alongside us.

In The Age of the Unthinkable, Ramo tells the story of Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso walking down a street one evening in Paris when a military convoy rumbled by. What caught their attention was that it looked different: the first time either of them had seen camouflage. Picasso cried out, amazed. “Yes, it is we who made it, that is Cubism!” Sure, camouflage was the direct application of Cubism by a lesser artist than Picasso, who thought he could apply art to transform warfare. But at the same time, that moment summarized in a moment the completely different way of seeing the world that was Cubism. It took artists to start the transformation, and it took artists to note the cultural shift.

Today’s prophets are found among artists. They’re the ones who have the pulse of what’s next. For instance, they’re the ones who first debated postmodernism… in the 1970s. The rest of the world took notice thirty years later. And the Church began to debate it within the last ten years, as if they could make a difference entering the debate that late in the day.

I was first exposed to Postmodern thought at a conference in 1999. It was eye-opening for me. I still remember one of the organizers lamenting about the state of artistic expression in most churches as well as the exodus of young people — particularly the artistic class — from the Church. Her conclusion: “The Church kicked out all the artists and then decided it wanted art.” She’s right on so many points. Without artists, worship becomes formulaic and stagnant. Without artists, the Church is so late in attempts to contextualize the Gospel as to be irrelevant. Without artists, the Church is left out of public debate on culture shifts.

So, while the Church engages with yesterday’s cultural shift, the artists long ago moved on to other shifts. What were they discussing at the turn of the century? What are they discussing today? The reason artists can express or portray an idea in fresh ways is that they see in fresh ways. The key to thinking differently is seeing differently.

Remember the old Apple ad series? The only one I clipped was the one featuring Ansel Adams. I wish I had the one featuring Paul Rand. Recall the narration: “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.”

Leaders would do well to maintain relationships with the arts community. Artists can make you uncomfortable. They are not always appreciated in their hometown. They love to note hypocrisy. But don’t try to forecast without your best “seers.” When it comes to anticipating the future, keep your artists close by.

I asked the question recently: In the world of social sectors, where should “parachurch” mission agencies like Wycliffe fall in the continuum between church and business? Let me try to outline the issues around the topic, and then next post we’ll look at how an organization like ours should act toward “the wrong people.”

One of my favorite metaphors for church is that it’s a hospital. Jesus himself said the healthy don’t need a doctor; those that need him are the sick, the poor and the needy. Those are the kinds of people the church is best suited to attract. The healthy aren’t the core audience, and certainly not the rich. Jesus said those are harder to corale for his kingdom than putting a camel through the eye of a needle.

A business exists to create value for its owners or shareholders. In order to do that well, it has to deliver a product or service of value to its customers, but a business doesn’t exist for its customers. At the end of the day, it has to make money.

Wycliffe is designed neither to heal the broken nor to make money. Its ultimate goal is to bring value to people in other parts of the world, but in order to do that, it must create value for that end with people and churches who are local. It therefore becomes a bridge, making connections between the two parties, and a broker, moving resources from one to the other and then communicating the effective use of those resources.

So, when the question is posed about how an organization like Wycliffe should act toward “the wrong people,” the response is complicated. If we have the wrong people on our bus, we will not effectively complete our mission. In that sense, we are like a business. We need to pursue sound strategies and good stewardship. On the other hand, few businesses recognize the role of the Holy Spirit, who is at the least a force multiplier, amplifying our meager resources and efforts. The Holy Spirit should play a huge role in our organization, as he does in each individual.

If you ask any business leader what his most important resource is, he’ll say it’s his people. With an organization whose members raise their own salaries, it may be even more so. Wycliffe is built on our staff and the relationships they bring with them. Personal relationships are our driving force, our economic engine. In addition, staff members not only serves the organization but their constituents: churches and individuals who sent them.

An organization built on a model where you screen heavily and only take in the top tier of candidates comes with a parallel value that you don’t let go of them easily or quickly. On the other hand, it comes with a value that you try to repackage and develop people for another role if they don’t work out in the initial one.

Let’s just say it’s complicated. Looking forward to further musings on the topic, and I welcome your thoughts as well.

[disclaimer]

The postings on this blog are my personal opinions and may not represent Wycliffe's position, strategies, or opinions. As a student of leadership, my opinion is subject to change. I just might learn something new, or you just might win me over.